


The Interpreter of Anxieties

by Sad_Not_Angry



Category: Homestuck
Genre: LMAO, M/M, Short Chapters, Slow Building Relationships, Trans Character, because i have nothing 2 do, dave is black, dave is trans, davekat - Freeform, i upd8 a lot tho, karkat is trans, kinda karkat and kanaya being bffs, like moirails ish, sex later, sometimes i will probably upd8 twice a day, sorry abt that, theyre trans, uhh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-19
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-23 08:51:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8321605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sad_Not_Angry/pseuds/Sad_Not_Angry
Summary: Karkat has anxiety, but God forbid he calls it a disorder. Dave's just trying to help him and gets caught up in the turmoil.
Will up the rating as needed.





	1. Chapter 1

“How do you feel?” You ask him, you hope your voice doesn’t carry too far because if anyone found you two huddled in the empty bathtub of a barely-used bathroom in the comet there would be about three thousand questions that you couldn’t answer.

“Like shit, Dave,” Karkat’s gravely voice says in a cautiously quiet voice.

You just look at him, curled up, eyes peering at you from over his knees. And God damn if you don’t notice how scared he looks. Or anxious, whatever it is. You were not blessed in the whole ‘knowing someone’s emotions just by sniffing the air’ bullshit like Rose was. But she’s a seer so it doesn’t count.

You mentally step out of the situation to recall that last hour of your life. You walking around, trying to focus on anything but living. Your hands couldn’t stay still. You were fidgeting and you felt like you just needed to run the fuck around and get whatever this was outside of you. So you did. You just took off and ran until you were gasping for air, which didn’t take long because you don’t work out. You never have, and you probably never will. As you slowed your pace to a walk, you heard something.

At first you thought people were getting it on in the bathroom because all you could hear was gasping breaths and little whimpers, but then your ears tuned into the crying part. The half sobs being choked off by the next shallow breath, the sniffling. You cautiously opened the door and stepped into the bathroom. Karkat was hidden by the shower curtain.   
You just stood there for a while, awkward, your palms got all clammy and your stress level absolutely went up like shit. You barely pulled the shower curtain back and saw Karkat, fully clothed, just looking like a mess in the bathtub. He saw you, too, and his eyes went wide. He hid his face in his shaking hands and tried to say something you couldn’t make out. 

He probably just told you to go away. You did not go away. Instead, you slipped off your shoes and stepped into the bathtub. It took a sec for you to get comfortable in a position  
that wasn’t directly touching him. 

“Hey, Karkat,” you said, “Wanna tell me what’s wrong?”

He ignored you and kept crying, when you tried to place a hand on his shoulder, his body went rigid and you quickly pulled back. You listened to him panicking and crying for a few minutes before you just started talking. 

“Rose says that there’s a few books she’s willing to return to you. Probably the ones that don’t include two women, to be honest. She gets super attached to those.” You laugh nervously, “But that’s understandable because she’s a big fuckin’ lesbian. You know what that means, right? I’ve only explained it to you a thousand times.  
“Anyway, I’m super hungry. I don’t know why everything here sucks. I can’t bring myself to eat the purple meat jerky that y’all have. It smells fine, but shit… It’s purple. Isn’t that shit supposed to be a normal brown color?”

“Purple is a normal color, dumbass,” Karkat says. You look to him, he’s in a more relaxed position now. He wipes his nose on his sleeve, then rubs his eyes. He’s starting to breathe normally again, just catching his breath. Good, keep him okay, distract him, Strider.

“Okay, no, purple meat is bullshit.”

“You’re bullshit.”

“Hey, fuck you, dude.”

“Maybe later,” he says, then looks down, “Kind of in a weird place physically… and mentally, I guess.” He doesn’t look at you, he seems to look everywhere but at you.  
“Do you want to tell me what’s up?” You take a deep breath and look at him. 

He gives you a cautious look, “I’m not looking for something like that.” You forgot that ‘friend who you talk about feelings to’ is a type of relationship for trolls. 

“I’m not meaning it in that way,” you trail off for a second, “I’m just… I just want to help you. Platonically. If that makes sense to you.” He seems unsure. “If you don’t want to, it’s chill.”

“I don’t know, stuff like this happens a lot. Usually just out of nowhere, God, it gets to fucking tiring. I’m tired.” He rests his head on the wall and closes his eyes.  
“So you have an anxiety disorder?”

At the word ‘disorder’ his eyes snap open, “It’s-- not like that.”

“It’s not?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

He pauses, “It’s like-- we can’t say stuff like that on Alternia. You’d be dead on the ground in nothing flat. You can’t have disorders.”

How the fuck? “That’s fucked up,” you say flatly. He just gives you an exasperated look, “Don’t I know it.”

And now you’re back to the present. You reach over tentatively and touch his shoulder, “You wanna head back to your room?” 

“Yeah.” He stands and exits the bathtub and you follow suit. He assures you that he’ll be fine without you even needing to ask, which gives you the impression that he won’t be alright, but you just leave it. He hurries off to his room and you go to yours. It’s plain and painfully boring. 

These grey walls almost drive you insane every night. 

You keep your sanity by getting properly undressed for bed and curling up under your single blanket and resting your head on your single pillow. Life’s complicated. 

You worry about Karkat until sleep grabs you in it’s loving embrace.


	2. Get it Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karkat overthinking his relationships with other people.

“It’s not like you’re stupid,” Dave says to you. His arm is around your shoulder. At the same time that it gives you comfort, it also makes you feel like screaming and ripping out your own hair. 

“It kind of is,” you say, “I just freak out over nothing or something small and stupid.” You feel like you’re not there all of a sudden. You just stare at the ground and try to fight off the feeling of floating. You hate this feeling. 

“Hey, you okay?” Dave’s voice is distorted and warped. Your feet look like they’re a million miles away. You grumble a response as you try to get back in touch with yourself, with reality. Dave is talking, but your ears feel like they have cotton stuffed in them. Dave shakes you and you snap back into focus with a gasp.

“Earth to Karkat,” Dave says, “Or, uh, comet to Karkat. You look like you’re going to pass out, buddy.” You wave him off with the stereotypical, “I’m fine.” and you change the subject.

Dave has been talking to you a lot more lately, and he’s hyper aware of how you act and your facial expressions. It’s nice that he notices and comes up with a reason to leave a situation that’s stressing you out. Your anxiety goes away when he pulls you out of rooms to just talk to him for a while. You really appreciate it, but you’re terrible at being sappy so you insult him instead of telling him how you feel. You think he gets it, though. He insults you back.

Actually, you were just pulled from one of Vriska’s “team meetings” because Dave noticed your restlessness. He told Vriska that the meeting was bullshit and asked you if you agreed. You did, even though it was the same kind of meetings you’ve had before and you truly didn’t mind them. He made small talk until you got to your room and you both sat down to talk about it.

He pushed you to tell him what’s wrong and you called yourself idiotic because there was never a reason for you to be such a pissbaby. 

You two talk for about an hour, you dismiss yourself to go take a shower after.

To say ‘there are things about myself that you don’t like,’ wouldn’t be lying. In fact, it would be an understatement. There are things that you absolutely hate about yourself. You just try not to focus too much on them while showering. Instead, you inspect the little bruises that you left while digging your nails into your arms and legs. Doing so helps you ground yourself in moments of anxiety or dissociation. Dave does not know about any of this. Terezi knows, from when you were dating.

Gamzee never knew. He didn’t care enough to know, he just ignored you. You barely ever talked to each other. He was too busy for you. But no hard feelings, right? You try to convince yourself that there are no hard feelings as your throat tightens up. 

Oh, Kanaya. She saw once and asked you about it and you nervously told her, stuttering and tripping over your words. She just touched them softly and moved on. You assume she was trying not to make you feel uncomfortable, but she wanted you to know that she cares. 

Dave-- he’s a friend, strictly. Only friend. Kanaya is something different as a whole, she delicately tiptoes across the line between friendship and moirailegiance and wraps you up in the warm feeling of her caring nature…

She’s something special. And you are comfortable telling her all of this because it’s been like that for so long. You wonder if it will be like that with Dave. How would he put up with you for so long? He’s not forgiving and passive like Kanaya. He’ll impose himself on you just to see you get angry, but he’ll also pull back and change the subject when he goes too far.

Fuck, things are complicated. You’re overthinking again. As always. Like it will be forever.

You focus on showering, cleaning yourself, and rinsing instead of Dave and Kanaya and Terezi and your stupid, messed up relationships with them. “Get it together,” you scold yourself.

Get it together.


	3. Okay

Karkat is very easy to read once you know what you’re looking for. He’s actually terrible at handling his anxiety, the poor kid. When Vriska starts blabbing on and on about leadership and all that bullshit that she doesn’t know anything about, Karkat’s hands find anything to do. He’ll fiddle with his shirt, his watch, his fingers. He’ll tap his foot or do the finger tapping thing on the table or his legs. 

You’re looking at him now, he’s across the room waiting for his coffee to finish dispensing and tapping his foot. You wish you could know what he’s thinking, how many things he’s over analyzing, how much his anxiety is welling up inside of him. 

You would ask, if only he didn’t automatically assume you wanted to fill a quadrant with him. The quadrant system is perplexing to you, it’s weird that friendliness is taken as flirting and platonic best friend is actually a relationship. You don’t know how to just be kind to him without him getting all weird and going quiet.

You just watch him, folding and unfolding his arms until his coffee is done brewing. Then he shoves cream and sugar in it and sits down, he just stares at it. He looks really stressed out just sitting there alone and looking at his coffee, so you go over. When you pull out the chair next to him, it makes a noise and he practically jumps out of his skin.   
“Sorry ‘bout that,” You say and sit down. He just shakes his head and takes a deep breath. Poor guy. He finally lifts his cup to his lips and takes a half assed sip of coffee. When he side eyes you, you realize that you’re just kinda staring at him intently as he tries to peacefully sips at his coffee. You look at your hands, which are resting on the table next to one of his.

The pale grey of his hands contrasts the brown of yours in a really artful way. You could rap about that. That’d be pretty gay, not that there’s anything wrong with being gay. Hell, you’re bisexual and so is Karkat. It shouldn’t matter, right? Other than the fact that y’all are just bros. Karkat has as look of existential fear on his face, so you spark up a conversation.

“You look like you’re going to die, Karkat. Are you doing alright?” He shakes his head and sucks in a breath. He doesn’t let it out and he’s staring wide eyed at something somewhere. Alright, Dave to the rescue. You wrap your arm around his shoulder and he leans into you very slightly. You decide to whisper to not bring attention to yourself, “Stand up, I’ll get you out of here.”

Karkat takes a few seconds to register what you said and stands up. You keep your arm around his shoulder and hurry him out of the kitchen and into your room. It’s cluttered, but not dirty. You sit him on your bed and hold onto both of his shoulders, “You’re okay, Karkat.” You’ve found that telling him that usually makes him feel a little better. It doesn’t seem to help him much right now, though. He’s started yanking on his hair and his breath is heavy and jagged. 

Fuck, Dave, think!

You kneel in front of him and put your hands on his knees, rubbing a little, “Hey,” you say in a much more caring tone than you intended. It catches his attention, he looks at you, “Karkat, do you want to talk about it?” 

He nods. Holy shit. He’s actually going to talk to you about it? What do you do? You stammer out an, “Okay,” and get comfortable next to him on the bed. He curls up into himself and you don’t touch him so that you don’t set him off or anything. He takes a second to gather himself, you remain quiet.

“It’s going to sound stupid,” he says, “But, um, I just keep thinking about Terezi.” You think about that a lot, how she and Gamzee being together probably fucked him up. “I hate walking around and hearing them,” he says as he wipes his face, “I just can’t stop thinking, it’s like the thoughts come so fast and I can’t keep track of what I’m actually thinking versus what I’m overthinking and worrying about. Do you think they talk about me? Does she talk about me to you?”

“No,” you say. You’re not sure if that answer is going to hurt him or not, but you have a feeling that either of the answers would hurt his feelings. He nods and wraps his arms around his stomach.

“Can I tell you something else that’s stupid?” He sounds more hesitant than anything.

“Sure thing.”

“I think she left because I was mean to her, but she was also kind of mean to me. I also think she wanted to leave because I have a lot of insecurities about myself-- like how I act and stuff. And how I look.”

“You’re a little excitable, admittedly, but you’re a hell of a lot better than you used to be, honestly,” you actually like talking to him like this. Seeing a side no one else sees any more. You’re like, true bros. “And anyway, you look fine. It’s not like you’re a movie star, but you don’t need to be. You look good.” That was gay. 

“I look worse with my clothes off,” he says blatantly. Not very much emotion, just like it’s fact. Like he’s saying the sky is blue. 

To your surprise, a bitter laugh leaves your lips, “Don’t I fuckin’ know it. Not what you look like naked, just that I look worse naked, too.” Karkat’s staring at you. Yeeeeup, you just let one of you little insecurities rise to the surface. Fuck. Change the subject, “Wanna listen to some music or something to get your mind off of all of this?”

“Yeah,” he says, “That’d be nice.”

You keep glancing over to Karkat, trying to find something that he wouldn’t like about himself. Does he feel the same sort of discomfort that you do about the same area of your body, or is it completely different? Maybe you’ll figure it out someday.

Maybe.


	4. We have to talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Touchy feely. If you're into fluffy romance as much as I am, you'll love this. 
> 
> I hope.

Okay, fuck. That was not supposed to happen. You fucking promised yourself you wouldn’t pull stupid shit like this! Well, Karkat, you’re in for it now. Dave probably has got a million different ideas in his head.

You pull yourself away from his body, you hope he’s asleep. Nope he glances over to you, “Have a nice nap?”

You didn’t mean to fall asleep, you were just listening to music and got super tired from anxiety. Your stupid ass could have at least not been snuggled up to his side, but no. You have to be a twat. 

You rub your eyes and sit up all the way, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to fall asleep.” Dave sits up and pats your shoulder.

“No big deal you were out for like an hour tops,” He brushes his fingers through his hair and pushes up his sunglasses, trying to make himself look like he hasn’t been trapped with you for an hour, probably. You feel terrible because you have a habit of biting things in your sleep. You wonder if you bit him. He hasn’t said anything, so probably not.

“Dude,” he says, “You grind your teeth like a fuckin’ champ. I’m surprised you even have teeth left. Don’t they break or something?”

You shake your head, “I’ve cracked a few, but that’s it. Nothing that bad.” He nods and gives you some look that you’re not going to be bothered to read. 

“Have you tried pressure therapy?” Dave asks, out of the blue. You have no idea what that means. He must see the confusion on your face, because he elaborates. “It’s like… I don’t know, don’t get angry but I was looking up ways to maybe help you out when you’re… Yeah. Anyway, apparently people with anxiety usually feel better with pressure on them or something? I learned a few ways to help.”

You give him a cautious look, “Like how?” You’ve never really tried to help it, you kind kind of dealt with it and got over it. Dave shifts and scoots so he’s in front of you, legs crossed.

“I’m gonna touch you, so don’t freak out or anything.” His hands meet your biceps and he squeezes, he moves up and down your arms, re-establishing the pressure in different places, down to your wrists and back up to your shoulders. It’s weird, you do feel more relaxed and you find yourself closing your eyes and just taking it in.   
Maybe it’s the pressure, maybe it’s the physical affection that you deny yourself, that you secretly crave. You zone out for a minute, when you open your eyes again, Dave is a little closer. He has a little smile on his face, “Good?”

You nod, but look down. It’s a little embarrassing for some reason, that he got you to feel that way. You haven’t felt that way in a long time then he goes and fucking touches you and you feel like you’re so relaxed that you could melt down into his lap.

Fuck. No. 

Fuck that, fuck his stupid smile, fuck the way his hands feel on your body, fuck the way he touches you, fuck the way you feel about him. You’re about to pull away when he takes one of your hands in both of his. He’s rubbing his thumbs into your palm, “This is another way I learned. Stuff like this works for a shit ton of stuff. PTSD, autism, anxiety disorders.” You watch as his brown skin rubs against your light grey skin. It hits you again that he’s a different species completely. You sometimes forget.

He’s doing it to both of your hands now, and you feel so embarrassed for no reason. Is it bad to crave affection? Is it bad that you want more of this?

Is it bad that you’ve showed so much weakness to him?

You never meant to make it a habit of seeking him out when anxiety gets bad. You meant to cut him off after the first time, but the next time happened, the time after that; over and over again, he’s watched you circle the drain and helped you back to your feet. 

Oh, no, no, no.

No, you have a crush on him, don’t you? Fuck. Fuck, you really like him. You trust him. You want him to hold your stupid, helpless body and keep touching the places that make you feel like you mean something.

“You doing okay?” He asks you. You want to yell at him for making you like him, for touching you in the ways that he does, for making you want to collapse into his chest. Instead, you just nod and offer a, “Yeah.”

“Cool. Are you hungry? I’m starving,” he says.

“Yeah, I could go for some food,” you reply. Maybe food will help you digest these stupid butterflies. 

You watch him as he stands up, pulling his shirt down and yanking it forward from his chest, then adjusting it again. He shoves his hands in his pockets and looks at you. “Gonna get up or do I have to carry you?” You realize that you’ve just been staring at him like an idiot and you stand up. You also adjust your shirt. He gives you a little grin and turns to walk away. You wonder if he saw how your shirt got stuck on your binder. 

Maybe he knows.

If he knows, he doesn’t care, right? You try to convince yourself that he doesn’t know, or that he doesn’t care a you follow behind him. 

* * * * * * 

After eating, Dave insists on following you around. You’d normally be outwardly pissed but inwardly actually okay with it, but now you’re outwardly stumbling over your words and inwardly ripping your insides apart.

Yes, you have it bad. He keeps looking at you, you feel like everyone is staring at you as you walk around. You feel like they know, all of them know about your stupid crush on a stupid alien. You spot Rose and she gives you a pleasant smile and says hi before going on her way. You stop Dave and tell him to wait where he is. 

You’re about to do something impulsive and stupid and you’re probably going to regret it. But god damn it, it needs to be done!

You catch up to Rose and touch her shoulder, “Um, hi?” That sounded really stupid. Your voice plays over and over again in your head. You try to ignore it and keep talking, “Can I talk to you?”

Rose smiles and offers up her time to you. She follows you into a more private place, just a room. “So,” you say to her, “You’re with Kanaya.”

“I know that,” she replies, the snarky bitch. You roll your eyes at her. “What’s it like, not being with her specifically, but I mean, being with an alien?”

“You want to date Dave?” She asks you. You stare at her, gobsmacked. You’re so fucking see through. She smiles, “It’s alright, I don’t think anyone else knows. Seers tend to catch onto things, though, so watch yourself.” 

She leans against the wall behind her and crosses her arms, “If I’m going to be completely honest with you, Karkat, I have no idea how to feel about it. It just kind of happened, hell I didn’t even know I was into women until Kanaya came around. I’m just as blind as you are on this. Coming from a human’s perspective on the whole topic, there are a lot of things that are different. Quadrant confusion mostly. Kanaya was very confused on whether I wanted to be moirails or matesprits with her because I was acting friendly with her. If Dave is acting touchy-feely and friendly with you, just assume he means it in a red way.

“It’ll be weird, especially as the relationship, uh... progresses. But I’ll let you figure that out. It’s not that hard. If two people really love each other, it’ll surpass the little hurdles.”  
With that, she says her goodbyes and it off. You go back to where you left Dave and he’s still there.

“For a second I thought you ditched me, Karkat,” he says and smiles.

“Dave,” you say, trying not to sound nervous, “We have to talk.”


	5. Stay with me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy halloween 2 updates in one day

Karkat is just looking at the ground, he looks like he’s surpassed the 5 stages of anxiety and is in a completely different realm. You’re just sitting there, watching him shake.   
He brought you in here to talk to you, and you have the feeling that he really did mean to talk to you, but his anxiety took over and now you’re here, sitting quietly. You reach over and touch his shoulder, trying to ease your way into doing what you were doing earlier. You read that it’s not good to just touch people out of nowhere when they’re having anxiety. He jumps and pulls away as soon as your fingers touch him, “Don’t- please,” he says.

You nod and keep your hands to yourself, “You doin’ okay?” He shakes his head and you feel so terrible for him. He’s trying to say something, but instead he’s just kind of gasping for air and wiping away tears that form in his eyes. He’s crying. Jesus Christ, what’s he trying to say? Why is it fucking him up so much?

You feel so weird, you haven’t really been with someone while they’re crying. You scoot closer to him, “Can I help somehow?” He looks up at you and then down at your hands, which he grabs. You get the hint and rub your thumbs into his palms, starting off gently and then working your way into his hands to relieve the tension. He eventually leans into you and you’re squeezing his arms like before. He’s still trying to get it together and you let him take his time to cool down.

He pulls away from you eventually, wiping his eyes on his sleeves and sniffling. “Sorry, that was really stupid,” he says. He’s obviously feeling embarrassed. You wrap your arm around his shoulders, “It’s really not a big deal. I’m always here for whatever. We don’t have to talk about what we were gonna talk about, either, if you don’t want to.”  
He looks at his hands and takes a deep breath, “I still feel like I’m going to freak out.” You pull him close to you, in a weird side-hug. He isn’t hugging back, but he’s also not fighting to stay away. “Do you have any other things that help?” You think.

“Well, yeah, there were a few. One of them is kind of intrusive and might me a little uncomfortable.” He looks up at you, “I’d literally take you hitting me over the head with a pan right now, as long as it would help.” You snort and laugh a little.

“‘Kay, well it involves me laying on top of you, just for warning.” Karkat’s entire body is shaking, but he tries to take off his shoes. Probably to be more comfortable when getting squished. You watch him struggle before covering his hands with your own and moving them away. You take off his shoes and he lays down.

It looks like pain and fear on his face as he squeezes his eyes shut and takes jagged breaths. You kick off your shoes and prepare yourself. You’re gonna non-sexually lay on top of your friend. That’s not gay at all. 

You crawl over him and gently apply pressure onto him. Once your full weight is on him, you find a comfortable position and just rest. You take off your sunglasses after about two minutes because they’re getting smudged as shit. Karkat’s breathing calms down after about five minutes. You move a little, only to notice that Karkat is holding onto your shirt. His nose is pressed into your shoulder and he’s just laying there and you’re just laying there and it’s not awkward but not entirely comfortable either. 

It’s weird because you didn’t ever imagine yourself just chilling on top of Karkat, and you didn’t ever think he’d be below you holding onto your shirt so you don’t get off of him. His hands are fisted tightly to your shirt on the sides, right by your hips so it pulls up your shirt a little and his fingers are brushing your bare skin. 

Okay, Strider, now is NOT the time to pop a boner. Especially not over minimal skin contact, come on. You’re super glad that you don’t actually have the equipment to pop a boner with, otherwise you’d be super fucked.

Neither of you move for a while. You’re just relaxing against each other. Okay, so yeah, you have a crush on Karkat. Everyone knows it. You follow him around, worry about him, and now you do this shit. Karkat’s either really okay with how close you two are, or he also has a crush. That’s what that means, right? Truth be told, you’re a bit afraid of what may happen in a relationship with Karkat. Would things change?

You pull away gently and sit up, then you help karkat sit up. He keeps his hands to himself and stares at his lap. “You feeling up to talking about whatever now?” You ask him. He nods.

“Okay, so don’t be weird or laugh at me or anything, okay?” You casually remind him that you’d never do anything like that. He continues, “So, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we are a lot closer than we used to be, and it’s been stressing me out a lot because,” he takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, “I really like you and being around you and I don’t know if you feel the same way about me.”

“You mean, like being close friends or like crushing?”

“I mean I have a crush on you.”

“Holy shit, Karkat,” you tried to not sound overly excited. You are overly excited. You realize now that you’re actually making eye contact, your shades are elsewhere. Karkat’s giving you a look, “I don’t want to make it weird.”

You shake your head and smile at him, “I was kinda thinking about how I had a crush on you already.” A little hope lights up his face, “Cool,” he says. 

You stare at him for a second, then bring him into a big hug, “Cool.”

He hugs you back. You just look at him when you pull away, “So that’s red right?” You’re still rusty on quadrants. He nods, “Yeah, red.”

He looks nervous. You’re smiling, “We’re gonna be like, the coolest matesprits ever. Watch out, Rose and Kanaya. We’re gonna fuck em up.” Karkat snickers at that and shoves your arm. Then you both stare at each other.

Fuck, it hits you that he’s your boyfriend now. What do you do? Do you just keep staring at him? He scoots closer to you and you have a feeling that things are going to be different. He’s leaning into you, yeah okay this is happening. You hold his cheek so you know where to aim, close your eyes, and lean forward.

His lips are soft and warm. It’s just closed-mouth kisses for a while, just to get used to it, then Karkat’s lips part and you can just barely feel the wet, warm inside of his lips between yours. You think your fingers are going numb, you’re excited. You feel like a child. You do your best to keep up with him, seeing as he’s had more experience kissing people than you. 

The two of you just kiss for a while, until Karkat cuts it off by hugging you and pressing his face into your neck. You hug him tight and rock him just a little bit. 

It’s you that breaks the silence. “You wanna sleep in here with me tonight? We can like, cuddle or whatever.” He smiles against your shoulder, “Yeah, that’d be nice.”

And you do.


End file.
